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HIV Cases Continue To Climb As Addiction Services Ramp Up

Two more positive HIV cases have shown up in southern Indiana since Tuesday, bringing the total to 155 people who have tested positive for the virus.

Almost all the cases have been linked to injection drug use.

A needle exchange program set up in April allows drug users to trade in dirty needles for clean ones, in hopes of stopping further spread of the virus.

LifeSpring Health Systems has offered addiction counseling services to 72 people through a local community center and 11 are currently being treated at a 30-day rehab program 40 miles away.

Dr. Terry Stawar, CEO of LifeSpring, says he's impressed by people's motivation in the facility, but many of their problems lie ahead.

"The major concern that they express is, what happens when the program is over and they go back home," he says. "We're looking to have really good after care for them, but a lot of them are going back to the same environment that produced or at least encouraged the addictive behaviors in the first place."

Stawar says Lifespring is seeing about 12 patients a week from the Austin area, four times the amount before the HIV outbreak.

Network Indiana contributed to this report.